NAR Communications Committee Finds Realtor.org Difficult to Use

Great stuff Lani

I think it’s awesome that you and Todd had this dialog in such a public fashion.

Hopefully setting a precedent going forward.

Keep up the good work.

After listening to the call at RE: RnD (on which this issue was one of the topics), I have a few thoughts:

1. I commented that someone really needs to think about the topics/categories of the site. A strong backend structure will give a strong front end user interface. When I built the band’s site I took weeks when we redesigned it and thought both of the content we had currently and the content we wished to provide in the future and built a site structure around that. Back end site structure not only makes it easier for multiple groups and people to update the site, but it also makes for a common sense approach to the user interface. By grouping related topics, all the information is found a lot easier. It is done to a point, I just think the main categories (and sub-categories) need to be more obvious as to what they cover.

2. Aesthetics don’t matter a ton to me. Sure, I’d like the site to look all clean and modern, but I can live without that. I think it will draw more attention though.

3. Tagging. In the call, tagging was discussed and I think this could be a great way to develop inter-relational links on topics. Things like RPAC (under Government Affairs) relate to issues in Committees, so the relationship could be developed through the use of some sort of tagging and cross referencing.

4. Membership numbers being what they are, I do think NAR needs to think of the lowest common denominator in their layout. The easier to find information, the better. With the sheer volume of information that NAR is trying to get out there, that isn’t easy.

5. As much as I hate to suggest we make more sites to work on, I think splitting the members vs. non-members content would be great. Realtor.org can serve a purpose for the consumer (and news media, etc.), so why not build that as a consumer info site and get a new domain that serves the members only segment. No one wants to run multiple sites I’m sure, but by concentrating the efforts on different sites, you can build different teams that specialize in each area. Members, Consumers, Association Business, etc.

6. Stop producing stuff that comes out like the “May 5, 2009: Foreclosure Prevention and Response Program” podcast. I don’t mean to be harsh and I know not everyone can be a great interview, but this is bad on so many levels. If we want to encourage people to be “real” we need to showcase how “real” our leadership is. On top of that, why do we go through all the flashy titles…give me the info and let’s move on. If the association is going to use video to get the message out I don’t think this is the way to do it. I’m embarrassed watching this.

7. I know this is semi-off topic, but when NAR uses Twitter, don’t post 10 things in a row. Give people the information in a slower drip fashion and I think more people will read it. When I get a whole scrolling line of NAR news, it just comes across as too much as once. Sometimes less is more.

I’m sure I’ll come up with more, but that’s it for now.

Great input Matt. NAR has a team that’s building a separate consumer website as we speak. I love the idea of tags. However, we have 8500 pages of content to go back and tag. Should we tag it? Should we tag part of it?

Steve,

Association Executives are the power users of realtor.org. They are on the site all the time, taking content and re-purposing that content to their local memberships.

See, this is one of our more giant hurdles. Different people need different stuff. We’re serving membership directly and indirectly.

When I click on your search for “nar code of ethics”, my first result is for COE training, the second result is a page that lets you download current and past versions of the COE. Are you seeing something different?

Also, we have already hired a usability specialist tasked with helping in the redisign of the site.

@todd
I thought I saw only training links, could have made a mistake, but I remember three training links.

If the site is for those power users, then let’s make one for realtors. We can call it associationexecutives.org :p

In regards to twitter(completely off topic), spreading out tweets isn’t just to avoid flooding someone’s timeline, it makes the tweet more likely to be noticed by people who check twitter intermittently. For example, I will never check twitter at 4PM and scroll down all of my tweets posted since 9AM, rather maybe the past hour or two. And I only have <500 followers. Imagine those with thousands. Anyway, spreading them out to one every three hours makes it more likely that people like me will at least glance one NAR tweet. I may click on that link if I like it, or I may click on NAR’s profile since I was interested in other news releases. It makes sense, from a social marketing perspective. That is why twitter schedulers exist. Not for lazy twitterers(they are easy to spot with their pseudo-posts) but for those with something interesting to share who want to do it effectively.
I’ll admit, our company does dump our listing feed to twitter when new listings hit twice a day. This is changing soon, due to the reasons mentioned.
Also, regarding your point of NAR pushing news out as soon as it’s available, I could care less. @realtors news=old news. Like the tweet today for this article dated the 2nd: https://www.realtor.org/press_room/news_releases/2009/06/phs_up

Steve,

Ummmm, how do you know? Please don’t take that the wrong way. But is there some sort of study that says 3-4 autogenerated news tweets get clicked on more often because someone spreads them out over the entire day as opposed to all 3-4 at once?

Here’s the other side of the coin.

Sure, people often only read what’s been recently tweeted, BUT, when they have two or three or four tweets from @realtors to pick from, isn’t more likely that one of those stories would appeal to them instead of hiding those other tweets until some time when they aren’t reading?

Also, the tweet you’re referring to was tweeted yesterday when the story came out, not today.

If we pumped out 10 or 20 tweets at one time, I could understand why that would be annoying. But we usually push out two or three. It looks like you (stevekrzysiak) aren’t actually following @realtors, so you might not of been aware of this.

@Todd
No study I know of, but it seems to be the growing consensus. It also seems to be the route many twitterati are taking. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. This debate should end with that. And no, my argument is not ‘everyone else is doing it, so it has to be right’ but rather ‘the right people are doing it.’

I see your point on the other side of the coin, but I don’t know anyone who likes to get their time line inundated that way, regardless if it is only 4 tweets. This may be one of the most common reasons people unfollow others on twitter. Well, that or self promotion. Like I said, I think if people really care about NAR news, they’ll click on the profile when they see one tweet.

I did make a mistake on that link, regardless, the one above it is from today about news yesterday I think. Point being, NAR news is not breaking news, at least not via twitter. And I just checked the link I mentioned about the search for ‘nar code of ethics’, yes, the code of ethics is there, just under the fold. I see why I missed it now.

I know it’s only four tweets or so, and I wasn’t complaining, I was agreeing that spreading is more efficient tweeting. I don’t need to follow @realtors to see when and how the tweets come(https://www.twitter.com/realtors). And I don’t follow @realtors because I have no reason to, realtor.org has an RSS feed.

When(not if) a conclusive study comes out proving that I am right about tweet frequencies, I cordially invite you to the south loop for lunch so we can discuss how right I was :p

@Todd
I see what you mean about cruise control, @chicagorealty is pretty much automated except it has not surpassed me in followers because I am sweeter than a bot :p It has however amassed quite a few followers, mainly due to the keywords. I think more could have been done if it were an engaging account and if the tweets were spread better. Point being, not hard to find followers on twitter, numbers mean nothing.

Furthermore, @realtors follower count(as well as yours) means absolutely nothing. The only reason @realtors is 3K because it is the official twitter account of NAR. What are you getting at with these numbers? I lost you here. Are you saying that people are obviously following, therefore there’s nothing wrong? Well, how many unfollowed @realtors? How many more followers could there be?

All I claim is that the follower count could be higher with a spreaded/scheduled tweet approach. it would be higher for various reasons, and not an occasional eye sore in peoples time lines. I can care less what you guys do, like you said, I don’t follow that account. just my two cents.

Oh, in regards to misconceptions, what misconceptions? this was about the efficiency of twitter dumping rss feeds, no? I haven’t voiced anything about how NAR does things(my shrink advises against these kinds of outbursts), and have only discussed that site whose domain we shall not mention and the twitter thing.

Todd – A couple of things…

I was the one that used the “10 tweets in a row” example. I take the blame for that. It was just a number that I wrote in order to complete the sentence. I agree it’s not 10 in a row.

I do agree with Steve and although there is no study, I know that’s how I work. I can’t speak for everyone, but I can speak for me.

@realtors having so many followers, I’m not sure if that means much to me. Ashton has ten bazillion people following him…do you really think every one of them pays attention to anything he says? People join to be “joiners” a lot of times in life. We Realtors® are notorious for seeking out the words “realtor” or “real estate” when online. Perhaps the account should take advantage of BudURL in order to measure the power the account really wields in terms of clicks from the Twitter account.

However, we have 8500 pages of content to go back and tag. Should we tag it? Should we tag part of it?

Todd, I wish I had the answer to this. Obviously it would come at a cost and take a long time. I think the goal could be to get the basics started, then start going back to the archives. Still not an easy or cheap task, but at least it could be put together and at least started (with the present material) as the past material slowly catches up.

I use R.org as an agent, broker, and association exec. My first thoughts are to reorganize the site into channels by user type. Each channel can have sub-channels and tags would be perfect for cross pollination of content between channels. 3 to 5 main options on the home page should be chosen based on historical heat maps. All other info should be easily accessible via a google type search. As Matt said, simple is better – especially when communicating to masses. There is a ton of great info on R.org, it just seems like it’s all thrown at you on one page. Turn down the noise.

As for the 8500 pages of content, I say go back 18 months and tag from there forward. If it’s over 18 months old, it’s probably irrelevant or antiquated anyway.

As for @realtors on Twitter, I’d rather see the account post a daily or multiple daily tech tips to REALTORS – like how to subscribe to an RSS feed of the same updates this bot has been spewing. (maybe this particular tip should be done at least daily for a while)

Changing the way membership consumes NAR data and improving the access to information are ambitious goals – but I’m confident @tcar can do anything. round of beers says he makes things better sooner than later.

I would create a “Wall of Shame” or whatever you want to call it. Cite cases of agents losing their license (or worse) – state-by-state or however someone smarter than me wants to do it. You could probably make it very funny. Include names of known scammers and predatory lenders under indictment in each state. The Craiglist rental scam being one recent example.

Also – we used to get “Mishap Reports” in the Navy – the dude that used to write them was absolutely hilarious when speaking about how some poor shipwreck tried to open a painted-shut window in a locker room wearing only a towel – you can take it from there. We could have a humorous “Realtors in Real Life” section – I suggest hiring Gwen Banta.

Oh, and add a button on the home page that says “To hear a duck quack, click here” Make AFLAC pay for it….

we’re at it again NAR Communications Committee Finds Realtor.org Difficult to Use: Got somethin.. https://tinyurl.com/os44gw

Steve, it looks like you are coming to RE BarCamp Chicago. The realtor.org team is interested in meeting with some of the attendees to get feedback on the work they are doing for the redesign of realtor.org.

Would this be a topic of interest for you at RE BarCamp?

We are trying to decide if a breakout session like this is something RE BarCamp attendees might be interested in, or if it will make them feel like RE BarCamp is turning into RE NarCamp. That’s the last thing we want to do.

Todd – I’ve never been to a REBarCamp, so I can’t comment on the functionality of one, but perhaps through the day you could invite members who you see as being “involved” to a special meetup at a given time, then collect them and do your thing. Perhaps this would avoid the feeling that it was an RENARCamp. I know you said “breakout session” but I was thinking more of after the REBarCamp was over, that way you’re not taking them away from what they came for, but also giving them the opportunity to participate in this sort of focus group.

Matt, once RE BarCamp is over, we all head to happy hour. So I’m thinking that would be the worst time possible. :p

I think we are going to reserve an auxiliary conference room in the building as to not take space away from the RE BarCamp event.